[NU Sports] One Shining Moment

[Jim Bendat]

Well, I'm sure we all hope Mark is right, but who really knows if Hardy 
is the guy?  I think that getting a really big-time coach is very 
unlikely.  Why would a name coach want to come to NU?  It would have to 
be an extraordinary individual who relishes a major challenge, and I 
can't imagine a coach who's already paid his dues and then earned a 
large measure of success wanting to go through all that aggravation.  To 
such a coach, coming to NU would be a step down.

To me, the more likely candidate to succeed at NU would be someone for 
whom NU is a step up -- namely, a successful coach from a mid-major 
school who has already taken his school to the tournament.  Coaches from 
three schools immediately come to my mind -- the coaches at Southern 
Illinois (Sweet 16 this year), Virginia Commonwealth (beat Duke) and New 
Mexico State (Reggie Theus, who once played for the Chicago Bulls).  
And, I don't even care if  that new coach got us to the NCAA, then left 
NU for greener pastures.  I just want to see us get to the tournament 
once in our lifetime.

Seeing Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota already make moves heightens my 
belief that we are doing nothing by being stagnant.    --   Jim B.



Mark Ament wrote:
> We have the coach that will lead us to the promised land = it will 
> just take a few years until he is ready to take the reins.  Tavaras 
> Hardy, he of the Cats of a few years back, has the contacts throughout 
> the Chicago youth basketball scene for recruiting purposes, 
> understands what it takes to succeed at NU and has the coaching skill 
> to get it done.  He just needs a few years of seasoning with Carmody 
> and when Carmody is ready to step down (on his terms) Tavaras will be 
> ready.  If Carmody hasn't done it by then, Hardy will, believe me.
> Mark
>
> Dennis W. Brandt wrote:
>> So it's back to the old "dump Carmody" routine.  And who will you get 
>> to replace him?  "Anyone" never coached a winning basketball team.  
>> The odds of getting a renown coach with a winning track record to 
>> come to Northwestern are three:  very slim, less than very slim, and 
>> you have got to be joking. Coaching changes are no guarantee of 
>> winning and certainly never have been for Northwestern.  Even the 
>> fabled Bobby Knight has failed to take Texas Tech to heights of 
>> glory.  Coaching isn't the problem at NU.  Recruiting is, and that is 
>> not all on the shoulders of the head coach.  We need flashy 
>> facilities that will impress a kid on a recruiting trip, and that we 
>> do not have.  Neither has Northwestern ever had an assistant 
>> basketball coach who could appeal to the black player.  Maybe Taveras 
>> Hardy is that guy, but that remains to be seen.  The university just 
>> might have to take a flyer on an athletically gifted but academically 
>> marginal kid, too, but they have shown no inclination to do that.
>>
>